Teaching differs from other professions in the United States in that much of its work takes place behind closed doors, outside the gaze of colleagues. Critical reflection on practice among educators is thus rarely found in K-12 schools. This culture of isolation has drawn growing attention, and research suggests that an emphasis on teacher collaboration is an important characteristic of effective in-service professional development (Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman & Yoon, 2001). However, much of the discussion about this issue has focused on teachers and practitioners participation in collaborative reflection. Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning shifts the professional learning community focus to administrators, thereby pushing district leaders to network with colleagues to improve practice and rethink the instructional evaluation process. By amalgamating and enhancing three recent approaches, walkthroughs, networks, and district improvement strategies, the authors promote a new approach, which they called instructional rounds... (preview truncated at 150 words.)

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Lauren SheaUniversity of California, IrvineE-mail AuthorLAUREN M. SHEA is a second-year doctoral student in the University of California, Irvine’s Department of Education in Language, Literacy, and Technology. She is a former elementary school teacher and administrator. Currently, Lauren is a professional development provider and researcher for the Center for Educational Partnerships at UCI, where she works with K-2 teachers in a local urban district on integrating language and content learning strategies. Her research is currently focusing on how mainstream teachers learn to incorporate language learning strategies into content lessons and how participation in online professional learning communities can increase teacher learning.